


Pro Oro (In Defense of Orochimaru)

by Starry_Fantasies (starfleur)



Series: when the world snippets [8]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Gen, Headcanon, Orochimaru feels, Worldbuilding, mentions of experimentation and immorality, orochimaru tends to overwork himself, short oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 07:40:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7426027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starfleur/pseuds/Starry_Fantasies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Orochimaru is immoral, but not evil. Inhuman, but not inhumane. He's...more serpentine than anything, actually. Especially without anyone there to guide him who understood.</p><p>Humans are confusing.</p><p>In the end, all he wants to do is <em>survive</em> with those who are his. And they can only do that if they become stronger.</p><p>(Orochimaru's thoughts on developing the Cursed Seal and giving it to Anko)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pro Oro (In Defense of Orochimaru)

**Author's Note:**

> Please enjoy.

He has always struggled, to be honest. His clan is closely tied to their snake summons--so much so that they've taken on serpentine traits: both physical and characteristic.

They've a detached view of the world.

Snakes don't have morals after all; they view everything in simple terms rather than the convoluted ways of humans. A rock is a rock; an enemy is an enemy, and prey is prey.

These things change rarely, if at all.

So Orochimaru struggles with morals and mercy and _rules_ and just...doesn't get it.

Humans are so confusing.

But Jiraiya and Tsunade, however much they tease him, have never pushed. They've always understood without asking. They balance him out, subtly inject themselves into conversations, and always save him in the end, for all that they usually let him (discreetly) flounder a bit before they do.

In the beginning, he was alright. His parents were there to advise him and impress on him how to at least fake understanding of manners and such. He had his team to cover for him later.

This is why Jiraiya and Tsunade are such a blessing.

This is why he loves them.

...This is why he did his best to help Anko become stronger, because she was like him and she understood and she needed training to stay strong if she were to survive the upcoming war (and only an idiot would think the Third Shinobi World War _wasn't_ coming).

He trains her and trains her, but when it wasn't enough (for _either_ of them), he turns to his experiments.

During the Second Shinobi World War, he'd increrased the strength, durability, speed, and senses of countless prisoners with his experiments and administered those treatments to himself afterwards to enhance his body.

Now, he remembers Jiraiya and his Sage mode (Tsunade's as well) and how they improved so rapidly with their usage of nature chakra.

Nature chakra is ubiquitous.

He thinks, _We can use that._

*

As always with his experiments, he starts off with everything he can get his hands on. Plants, first, to study nature chakra itself. Then Jiraiya's and Tsunade's notes on their Sage training (when he asks for them, his teammates eye him warily but obediently rattle off everything they can remember about it. Over the next two weeks, they hunt him down with anything else they remember. He's trained them so well). Once he thinks he (mostly) understands nature chakra, he starts experimenting on animals.

It's long hours and sleepless nights and sudden inspirations, but he finally manages to create a basic skeleton seal to absorb nature chakra without being turned into stone.

To be honest, he'd almost given up when he'd heard that from the two--Jiraiya has his toads and Tsunade her slugs but it's impossible to simply _know_ exactly how much would turn someone into stone on their own. It took countless experiments with animals, who couldn't regulate their own chakra, and enough mathematical equations to make his head spin until he could set up a seal that would never allow the nature chakra being converted into one's own chakra to exceed the limit of what was safe. He could never purposefully endanger Anko's life like that, after all.

(Controlled danger was fine. Risking turning her into stone? There was a higher chance of him taking a nap in a pool of ice, and he _loathed_ the cold and wet)

So he begins to apply the nature seal to humans and it...works. Mostly. The subjects are vegetables, so he can't be too sure. They do scream in pain, however, and considering what he knows about them...well. He keeps his experiments low-key for the most part, but Danzo gives him access to the prisoners T&I was done with as long as his experiments benefit Konoha (and they would. Orochimaru just doesn't plan on spreading the seal anywhere beyond himself and Anko. It would be their trump card).

As he applies the seal onto their skin and forcibly activates it, tortured though they are, they scream as if their world is ending. After some time, he deduces it was due to the pain of their chakra levels increasing more rapidly than their bodies could adapt to. A few of them die from chakra overload in their brain, but none of them turn to stone, and he counts that as a success. The conversion from nature chakra to their own chakra was seamless.

Slowly, the seal starts to take form. It grows more and more detailed. He tailors each of them to the physical characteristics of the patient and later to the amount of chakra each subject possesses. A year after he begins his foray, he performs a successful series of experiments. The subjects scream the whole way, but they are much more powerful physically at the end, and their chakra levels are greatly increased.

After some careful calculations and experiments, Orochimaru decides both he and Anko would be able to bear the pain (he compares the data from the patients' brains from the seal and from having his serpents poison and constrict them. They are close to equal).

For the position, he eventually settles on the side of the neck closest to the tenketsu point on the throat. The increase in power and skill takes place swiftest there, and on the battlefield, every moment counts.

It's been a year and a half since he started, the seal is almost finished.

Orochimaru looks at it and smiles for the first time in a long while.

He hasn't been this happy in years.

*

Danzo helps him dispose of the bodies (he can't let the subjects free in their strengthened state. That would be troublesome). He keeps them for a month for observation then disposes of them.

He starts to specify the seal for children. It's hard, though, because Anko is a shinobi but she is young. He resorts to civilian children with high chakra levels and intelligence, hoping it will be enough, but their chakra is untrained and takes to the seal _too_ well. Their system is overloaded with chakra. They die.

Half-heartedly, he tries to adjust the seal a bit, but ends up taking Danzo up on his offer for trained shinobi children.

He doesn't ask where they come from. Danzo doesn't ask where they go.

He perfects the seal as much as he can, then decides that Anko is mentally strong enough to survive.

She's going out onto the field soon, and she'll need time to adjust to the difference in power before the Third Shinobi World War starts (because it's inevitable that it will).

He asks her if she's willing to do whatever it takes to become stronger.

She says yes.

So he shows her five unconscious civilians and four emotionless shinobi and tells her she'll only survive if her will is strong enough.

Then he knocks them out (he doesn't want to hear her scream) and inks the seal into their skin.

True to his predictions, she's the only one to survive.

The civilians are undisciplined and their neglected chakra networks greedy for _moremoremore_. They die from chakra overload.

The shinobi are broken and have no will to live. They die when their bodies cannot adapt to the influx of chakra, strength, and speed fast enough.

Anko, on the other hand, is trained and ready with a will to live like fire. She survives and endures the pain.

He is proud.

So proud it hurts.

So, so proud of his student and relieved that two years of sleepless nights and running on air and poring over mathematical equations and data and books and sometimes forgetting how to even _think_ (his mind was just that tired) were not for naught. That they were worth it.

Then Anko is scared, and his world ends.

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that while I did my best to paint Orochimaru's actions as understandable in his logic, it still wasn't right for him to experiment on unwilling patients, even if canon's moral standards are extremely loose and weird.
> 
> Please review. Feel free to ask any questions. Thank you for reading.


End file.
